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Day 20: Why plant 1 when I can plant 6
About a month ago I got in contact with Carey Danche, the principal of the Christel House and talked to him about planting a tree on their property. He was very excited because when the school did their last expansion they had told the city they would add to their tree canopy. As we were discussing the tree and its location we realized there was a great opportunity here. I was able to arrange to get 6 Shingle Oaks (Quercus imbricaria) to plant. In exchange Carey arranged for me to have six Seventh Grade students come out to help. In addition to the 6 students, I brought along a few friends from Crowe. I even had an added bonus of David Forsell showing up at the planting!
This planting was good from so many angles. With KIB's help I was able to help out one of our city's schools. I was able to use today to make sure we had 2 more people from Crowe who really understood how to plant a tree in advance of our day of service on Thursday. I also got to work with some great kids and help them understand the benefit of trees and the proper way to plant a tree. The kids were so excited. They said they would like to join me on my other plantings, but they had to go to school each day. We asked them if this was a reward or a punishment. They said a bunch of kids volunteered to help and the teacher picked the 6 of them as a reward!
The energy the 6 kids brought to the planting was really great. It was also really important. 5 of the 6 holes we dug were filled around 20% with rocks. This made for some challenging digging and pick-axing. This is definitely one day I would not have been able to survive on my one. The only thing I felt bad about is they were wearing their school clothes and they got them a bit dirty. I'll be making sure the principal knows that if any of the kids ruined their pants I will make sure to replace them!
There is a question a lot of people have asked me, "Since you planted 6 trees today, does that mean you are taking the next 5 days off?" The answer is no There are some days where I am planting more than a tree, but the essence of 30 trees in 30 days is that every day I will plant at least one tree...rain or shine. Fortunately for me, it has pretty much been all shine. Tree 21 is going to be planted at the home base tomorrow, at KIB. There is a big fund-raising luncheon and at the end everyone in attendance will be invited to come out and join me as I plant my 21st tree which will put me 70% complete. If you aren't going to be at the fund-raiser, but you would like to help support everything that KIB is doing (like enabling my project), you can go to this link. The average cost of a tree purchased by KIB is $100.
